


perantique.

by duelbraids



Series: blessedentia archives [5]
Category: Xenoblade Chronicles
Genre: Gen, faced mechon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 23:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5889451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duelbraids/pseuds/duelbraids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ancient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	perantique.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so. huge faced mechon au that i could yell for days about, but instead just take this smaller piece about it.

She had been very well convinced that, before this, she had never existed. That, up until the moment where flesh and been sewn into metal, there had been nothing for her. And, in some ways, she had been right. Melia had been hewn to her city’s standards, despite their being set so high that nothing living could reach it ( and now, as something undead and cold, she was naught but a machine, in their and her own eyes. the only expectations she met were those of her Lord. ) There was nothing for her to go back to, nothing that wanted what she became – for she was Icarus, Amethyst Face, the scourge of the ether mines, all of these things, but not Melia.

And yet, she now feels a tug in the pit of her stomach ( does she have one, or are mechanical butterflies just swarming in her dead shell of a body? ) It is not every day one faces a High Entia, especially not one so _horrid_  looking –aren’t you supposed to be beautiful, isn’t that the point of High Entia? To look pretty and then to die? The woman’s pale face had been torn in ribbons, her dress burned up one side and her hair a grayish, matted mess. Icarus thinks she sees blood in certain places too; it makes her question. What would one be doing here, especially one so fragile looking – and why does fear pool at the bottom of her heart, at the sight of this [bug’s](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fv&t=MTcwMDhkNTdjODUxYWExYmJmMDA5NDJiMWFiZTA5N2UzNzQ1MmFmMix5ajBkVDBpQQ%3D%3D) decrepit looking face? 

Mechon’s chest opens with a scratching, a creaking, a final groan of metal that is not used to moving. Little does a Face Unit’s pilot ever leave their mechon, especially not those meant for ether collection; the metal joints of her legs were heavier than she expected, making her descent slow and rather _loud_. The metal outcroppings serve as stepping stones down, the end of her spear helping her keep balance when she finally reaches the ground and turns ‘round.

She thinks she hears the High Entia scream. It’s rather shrill, and withered with age. Nothing like the voices she knew, all gravely and muted through mechanics, or ageless voices that she cannot put a year upon. Perhaps all Mechon were immortal, now that she thought of it; but thinking is not made for her, and how quickly she drops the idea was as swift as it came to mind.

The clearing does not offer much in the way of coverage; both Icarus and the woman are easily seen – by everything up to and including each other. Part of her realizes how very _similar_ they appear, silver hair and blue eyes ( but there is something different, for this woman’s eyes are very _dark,_ not in color, but in tone; as if everything in her sight, she saw no light, no redeeming qualities in – and a brand, a circle inside the iris, she notices that that’s more than different – it is missing. ) Their stature, too, is different; Icarus knew little of what her body once looked like, but she knows it is very different from this one, for she is all angles and Icarus remembers being small, remembers having a soft shape to her face. They’re very different, Icarus tells herself, and of course they would be. She, this cruel looking old woman, was the **enemy** , a weapon of Zanza’s.

A weak, poorly forged weapon, Icarus thinks. She looks frail, perhaps Icarus could use her heavy limbs to her advantage, as brutish as that sounds. Ether units were supposed to be much more _dainty_ than that. It is why she has a spear, not those horrid claws, or the hammer that was never used to fix things. More alike to Face Nemesis, and oh, how she doesn’t mind that; both given a precise weapon to wield. How she’d like to have the _power_ of such a mechon too.

Mechanical hands grip around her weapon and she near poises to strike; point of the spear pointed towards the High Entia; her expression had turned to awe, or some other revere; perhaps this woman saw it now, how much more wonderful it was to be mechanical; and she came closer like a foolish child. Weren’t the elderly smarter than this, to approach doom so readily? Perhaps she preferred death to being transformed. 

The gnarled hands reach to touch Icarus’s face – was this foolish, or perhaps brave – and before she can yell or demand, the woman speaks, “Melia, that is you, is it not?” Jaw lined with mechanics trembles ever so slightly, though with anger or sadness she is not sure. 

“I am Amethyst Face.” Automatic response begins, metallic claws reaching to pry the fingers from the last parts of her that are flesh. 

The woman shakes her head, and Icarus cannot help but follow the scars with her eyes; how entrancing such disgusting things were ( had Icarus had them? patterns across her body where years had worn her down? did she want them? ) “You have her face, her voice.” As if she wasn’t quite done with bother Icarus yet, her hands unfasten a crimson _something_ from her belt. 

“This is yours.” She says, trying to force it into her left hand, to pull the spear from her death grip. It’s a staff, Icarus realizes, and ether seemed to radiate off of it, like waves trying to pull her into an ocean. Icarus has stopped breathing, she realizes, and she has to force the oxygen into fake lungs. 

Dominant hand clasps around the staff, for if there is anything a Mechon wants, it is something that feels like power. Control was not something they got often ( it was a rarity, a sweet, suffocating rarity that their Lord insisted would smother them, they would die without his directions. ) and power meant control. Power meant that they had Egil’s favor, that they would finally be doing something more than be one of the pawns. Blue eyes dart back and forth between the woman the raw power she has put in her hands. 

Waves erode away the walls in her mind, very, very slowly. This is yours, she had said, and Icarus believed her. This was meant for her, this was meant to be put in her hands; perhaps she wasn’t meant to be undead, but that was a side detail. Once more, her view flicks from the stave, to the woman, and it stays, “Leave.” she growls, “Leave, for I have no need to kill you.” 

Face Unit feels the need to stiffen, when the woman wraps her arms around the metallic frame, but she resists such a natural urge; Icarus believes she is not **scary,** not anymore – this woman meant no harm. “When you come back to Alcamoth, ask for Nike.” 

But why would she ever go back – had she ever been there?

Power preoccupies her mind for hours, pulling her in and under as she tries to understand – this is **her** staff, she is sure of it. But who is she – certainly not Icarus. Certainly not, no High Entia would believe she needed to have her hands on… An Empress’ Staff. Her staff. Mufflers over her ears crack with static – someone is trying to contact her. 

“Unit 1507, you have been inactive for over two hours. What is your status?” the voice is cold, uncaring, though perhaps a bit shocked. It is unusual behavior of her. 

Icarus – no, that’s not her name – knows the voice; it is Egil ( and how must she answer, but oh so delicately. ) “I am… merely confused, though I am incapable of discerning a reason.” Hands tighten around her staff, her staff, she must keep reaffirming that; she’s terrified she might forget ( part of her envisions a pair of blue eyes she should know so, so well, as if this was someone who’d raised her – a brother, perhaps – and she doesn’t want his memory gone too. ) “I… have come to the realization that I do not know who I am.” 

“You are Icarus, Face Unit number 1507.” 

**– no, that is false. a lie. you are melia antiqua.**


End file.
